The Mayo fiddler and singer shares a banshee-haunted film directed by Ruth Clinton, ahead of his debut solo album Welcome the Stranger into Tipsy House.
Last year Cathal Caulfield’s fiddle was one of the more striking details on ‘Of The Sorrows‘, the song that marked the return of For Those I Love and later turned up on Carving The Stone.
Now the Mayo-based fiddle player and folk singer steps out on his own with a debut solo album, Welcome the Stranger into Tipsy House, due on Bandcamp this Friday, October 16th, and Nialler9 is premiering the video for one of its most unusual tracks.
‘Finvola, the Gem of the Roe’ is a song of love and loss that sets Caulfield’s singing against a fiddle that does a lot more than accompany. It grows from an old poem about the O’Cahan clan, which once included a verse about the clan’s banshee. Caulfield took his lead from his late grandmother’s copy of The Folklore of County Wexford, which notes that in parts of Leinster the banshee was known as The Bow. In the instrumental section she is brought back as a wailing, scratchy fiddle line, the folkloric image of The Bow combing her hair as she cries. The birdsong and wind that surround it are made from fiddle and bow alone.
The film was directed by Ruth Clinton, the musician with Landless and Poor Creature, and it draws partly on Patricia Lysaght’s doctoral thesis on the banshee. Clinton is also one of the inspirations Caulfield names for the way he sings over his own playing, along with Lankum’s Cormac Mac Diarmada, sean-nós singing and the Donegal and Appalachian fiddle traditions. Mac Diarmada has returned the compliment, describing the pairing of voice and fiddle as “the weird and the mesmeric”.
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“Cathal’s singing and fiddle playing combine the weird and the mesmeric superbly, gelling and bouncing with one another in a way that is emotional and soulful”
– Cormac Mac Diarmada (Lankum)
Caulfield says the song is his most experimental “fiddle song” so far. He traces it back to 2016, when the artist Sinéad Kennedy asked him to play an air or sing a song for an exhibition at the Douglas Hyde Gallery.
“In 2016, Sinéad Kennedy asked me if I would ‘play an air, or sing a song, or both’ for her upcoming art exhibition in the Douglas Hyde Gallery,” Cathal explains. “Before that, playing and singing simultaneously sounded out of my reach. Ten years later I am still engrossed in this mad pursuit. Finvola, the Gem of the Roe is by far my most experimental ‘fiddle song’ yet.”
Welcome the Stranger into Tipsy House
Most of the album is unaccompanied solo fiddle, a choice Caulfield says was partly inspired by Covid isolation. Its 15 tracks of reels, hornpipes, airs and set dances reach back as far as pre-Famine Ireland. The opening reel, ‘Welcome the Stranger’, was collected in south Wexford in the 1870s and appears in John Roche’s Wexford Tunebook. “The Separation of Soul and Body” is an air first published in Dublin in 1726 in the Neale collection. Caulfield draws on the sean-nós tradition of keening, and on fiddlers Tommie Potts and Frank Cassidy, for his version. ‘Finvola, the Gem of the Roe’ is track 14, and there are guest turns from Sarah Flynn (concertina), Fionnán MacGabhann (uilleann pipes) and Catriona Kennedy (fiddle). The final track is dedicated to the late fiddler Mick O’Grady.
The record was recorded, mixed and co-produced by Kilian O’Flanagan at Sonic Recording Studios in Dublin and mastered by Ben Rawlins, with artwork by Sinéad Kennedy. It was supported by Mayo County Council’s Artist Bursary Award.
Album launch in Dublin
Caulfield will launch the album in the Backroom of The Cobblestone in Dublin on Saturday, November 14th. The pub has been his musical home since he was 19. Pre-order the album and find the artwork at cathalcaulfieldmusic.com.
WELCOME THE STRANGER INTO TIPSY HOUSE TRACKLIST:
- Welcome the Stranger / Tipsy House (Reels)
- The Boys of Wexford / Leabhar na gCeart (Air & Jig)
- Batt Henry’s Favourite / The Ballroom Favourite (Barndances)
- The Winding River Roe (Song)
- Napoleon’s Retreat / Delia Crowley’s (Set Dance & Reel)
- The Aughavas / The Bunch of Keys / The Cornhill (Reels)
- The Separation of Soul and Body (Air)
- Paddy Kelly’s Fancy (Reel)
- Éist le Fuaim na hAbhann agus Gheobhaidh tú Breac / The Bannow Bay (Hornpipes)
- The Cailín Deas (Song)
- O’Connell’s Farewell to Dublin / Banish Misfortune (Set Dances)
- Murphy’s Monaghan Twig / The Ship Has Sailed (Reels)
- Nora Críonna (Jig)
- Finvola, the Gem of the Roe (Song)
- Dwyer’s / Love at the Endings (Hornpipe & Reel)
Album Credits
Produced by: Cathal Caulfield and Kilian O’Flanagan
Recorded and Mixed by: Kilian O’Flanagan at Sonic Recording Studios, Dublin
Mastered by: Ben Rawlins
Album Artwork by: Sinéad Kennedy
Promotional Photography by: Sarah FlynnMusic
Supported by Mayo County Council’s Artist Bursary Award
Niall Byrne is the founder of the most-influential Irish music site Nialler9, where he has been writing about music since 2005. He is the co-host of the Nialler9 Podcast and has written for the Irish Times, Irish Independent, Sunday Times, Totally Dublin, Cara Magazine, Red Bull and more. Niall is a DJ, co-founder of Lumo Club, event curator, Indie Sleaze club promoter, and producer of gigs and monthly listening parties & events in Dublin.
